UNI Market Cap Rebounds $120M as Rest of Crypto Market Falters

Uniswap’s week-old UNI token is the big winner in Wednesday trading with a rebounding price and a market cap swelling by over $100 million in the past 24 hours.

• Data from CoinGecko shows the price of the UNI token has increased by just under 20% from $3.80 to over $4.60 over the same time frame.
• That's led to the coin's market cap jumping by nearly $120 million, from $460 million to just under $580 million at around 13:00 UTC.
• At press time, UNI was the 33rd biggest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $581 million, and individual tokens trading at $4.75.

• Mounting concerns over a second possible lockdown in both the U.S. and Europe have, over the past few days, sparked a macro sell-off which has had a knock-on effect on digital assets, with approximately $30 billion shaved off the total market cap since Saturday.
• UNI has been no exception. Having hit a record high of $8.40 on Friday, the coin slid across the weekend and into the new week, hitting a low of $3.44 Tuesday morning.
• But its rebounding price in the past 24 hours is markedly different from the lackluster movement of other, more established, cryptocurrencies.
• Bitcoin, the largest digital asset by market cap, has stuck around $10,400 to $10,500 since its $500 fall on Monday.
• Ether, the second-largest, has climbed just $4 over the same time frame.
• The net inflow of bitcoin into exchanges, indicative of holders preparing to sell, has since risen to levels not seen since March 13.
• Launched last Wednesday, UNI is designed to power on-chain governance decisions on Uniswap – one of the most popular trading platforms in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.
• It's possible that as a barely week-old DeFi coin, UNI's price may be shielded from some of the "real world" macro effects that have put other more widely traded digital assets into the deep freeze.
• But it could also be that the market is anticipating greater institutional involvement in the DeFi space.
• CoinDesk reported Wednesday that crypto money manager Panxora is looking to raise $50 million for a new DeFi hedge fund. CEO Gavin Smith said the firm saw this new branch of crypto as having "great potential."
• Indeed, while there doesn't appear to be a surge in DeFi coins across the board, the native tokens for both yEarn and Band, two alternative DeFi protocols, have surged 7% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.

See also: Uniswap Users Say Uniting Can Strengthen UNI